Day 3 - A Son's Betrayal

My son Tom will tell you that he is the most adventurous eater in the world. He’ll tell you this all day, and all night, and he’ll say it so convincingly that you’ll have not a doubt in your mind that you could serve him up a terrine of rabbit guts and squid ink, garnished with an ever so perfectly turned out deep fried pork bung, and he gulp it down like the fifteen year old boy that he is. To hear him tell it, a dish of chilled monkey brains would go down like a light afternoon snack. You’d be sure he wouldn’t balk at a plate full of the Scandinavian fermented shark. You know, the stuff where they bury it for like two, or three, millennia, and then EAT IT!!!!! Yea, to hear him tell it, he’d eat that. He’d eat that with a garnish of that Corsican maggot cheese. (Fuck is it Corsica? Shit, I don’t know. The point is, that is one of the grossest things there is, excepting the fermented duck eggs with the fully formed chicks inside them that people eat for bar food in, well where the fuck ever. Seriously, these are all things, but I’m not going to bother looking it up. I’ve seen the pictures. I don’t need that horror in my life again. You do it, if you don’t believe me, and let that be the thing you fall asleep to. I’m not going there again.)

            What we’re getting at here is that he’d have you believe he’s the kind of guy who will eat anything. ANYTHING. If what he means by, “anything,” is macaroni and cheese with some kielbasa in it, then fine, sure. The reality is that the differentiating factor between my son and his friends, is that he does have a compatriot who once told me my home made macaroni and cheese was, “To Cheesy.” This boy, at the time, was 12 years old.

            What the fuck is that???

            What does this have to do with eating salads, you might ask? It has everything to do with it, because one thing a father can count on is his son’s devotion, but today is the day my son decided to turn his back on me; to abandon me as his father; to utterly crush my will to live.

            He did this by becoming a truly adventurous eater.

            I’m intent on eating salads, and I get, that as a son, that’s kind of boring. Still, a little help here would have been nice.

            We had lunch in Boston, at some joint near Fenway Park, next to Guitar Center on Boylson, that is a straight up sports bar.

            What could go wrong? Right?

            If you’ve ever wondered about the proliferation of foodie culture into the mainstream, this was it.

            The menu consisted of all the things you’d expect: wings, burgers, fries, steaks, etc… Also, they had insanity like, duck confit and Cheddar curd French fries; pork belly sliders; Waygu burgers with caramelized onions and stinky blue cheese. In other words, everything I would ever order on a menu… Ever!

            What did my son do? My loved first born, who is not nearly adventurous as he thinks he is? He ordered the duck confit and Cheddar curd fries along with the pork belly sliders!!!!

            He didn’t know any better, really. I wasn’t until midway through this meal that I told him about this crazy One Hundred Salads thing, but still, how the hell could I resist. I mean PORK BELLY… Duck CONFIT!

            Well, I got my usual, a Cobb Salad. This time with Balsamic Vinaigrette, which is no small thing, but you can be sure I was eyeballing his meal the whole time. I’ll admit, I had some of the fries, but I did not punch my own offspring in the face and take his pork belly from him. I did not wield a knife and destroy all that is good and wholesome in his youthfulness, in an effort to stuff my face full of duck confit. I was a good father. I sat back and waited for him to realize that the pork belly, which was not even remotely prepared correctly – it was tender, but it was not even seared, which means he was trying to munch down bites of pretty gelatinous fat – was not the thing he really wanted.

            To the waitress I said, “I hate to trouble you, but would be so kind as to bring my son a plate of regular sliders…” She knew what was going on. She was not as quick with the kitchen as she should have been, and they over cooked the new sliders on the fly, but they came, and Tom liked them.

            Here’s what’s important: Tom did not finish two of the sliders and I didn’t touch them. I left them right the fuck where they were. In my head, I thought of all kinds of things I could do with “Pork Belly Salad,” but I left them behind. When we left the restaurant, I did not ask to have the two HUGE pieces of pork belly packed up, so I could have modified the dish to be GOOD – I mean the belly was tender, but stupidly bland, so I know damn well I could have had a grand time making a delicious pork belly salad, and I would have loved it – but I walked away.

I walked away from Pork Belly.

I walked away from Pork Belly I had already paid for, which I was sure I could do great things with.

I walked away.

Oh yea… The confit fries? Tom was scraping the cheese and duck off the bottom of the plate.

            That’s my boy!